Darkness
by Ankh-Ascendant
Summary: Sesshoumaru has gone looking for Naraku, and unfortunately he finds him. Naraku imprisons him within his body, trying to break him and finally absorb him into himself.


_TITLE: Darkness  
CHAPTER: oneshot  
AUTHOR: Ankh Ascendant ( setosgirl0 / neferseti0 )  
DATE: 8-28-09  
FANDOM: Inuyasha  
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Inuyasha, or make any money from it.  
PAIRINGS: Naraku/Sesshoumaru  
TYPE: Psychological  
RATING: X  
WARNINGS: bondage, "toys", captivity, non-consensual, BDSM  
OCs: none  
BETA: none  
WORDS: 8472  
SUMMARY: Sesshoumaru has gone looking for Naraku, and unfortunately he finds him. Naraku imprisons him within his body, trying to break him and finally absorb him into himself.  
NOTES: Written from a writing prompt, the list here; this prompt was "the dark"._

* * *

Darkness

"Are you afraid of the dark?"

As far as he could see, there was no reason to answer the question. His eyes pierced the darkness easily enough, turning the blackness of the deep cave into a grey on grey landscape. Even so, it didn't reveal the speaker.

"Come out, Naraku."

A chuckle as dark as the cave echoed from the walls. "Why don't you come and find me, Sesshoumaru? That is what you're here for, isn't it?"

Again, he didn't answer. The answer was probably obvious. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be easy. He had tracked him here, but now the smell of Naraku was all around him, and was no use to pinpoint him further; his voice was directionless, as though projected, and also no use. He would have to locate him the 'normal' way... walking and looking.

"That's why you left your pets behind, isn't it?" Apparently Naraku tired of his silence. "Is Kohaku supposed to be protecting them?"

As a matter of fact, yes. Kohaku and Jaken were capable of protecting them from normal enemies, and Rin was smart enough to hide. They should be safe for as long as it would take him to kill Naraku.

"He doesn't have a good record with that..."

Sesshoumaru continued to ignore the taunting voice. Naraku was trying to distract him or get a reaction from him - he wouldn't give him the pleasure. If Naraku thought that talking about his followers was going to strike a nerve...

"Do you really think that little girl is safe?"

"Shut up," he snapped, hand moving toward his sword. His sword which was useless, of course... Flexing his claws once, he left it alone. Naraku was just trying to get to him... he couldn't let him.

Ignoring the chuckle drifting through the air, he followed the cave around a corner. The darkness was still oppressive; without his nose to guide him, all scents smothered by Naraku's, he felt blind. It was not a pleasant feeling.

"Well, don't worry, I have a gift for you. I'll lay your fears to rest."

His eyes narrowed suspiciously, and his hand twitched again, but he didn't answer. Naraku and his damned mind games...

"Just keep walking, you'll find it."

Fully aware that he was walking into some sort of trap and prepared to fight whatever minions Naraku thought worthy of him, he followed the path around the next corner.

His eyes widened perceptibly. Rin hung limp and quiet halfway up the wall, her arms chained above her head, staring at the darkness her weak human eyes couldn't pierce. If not for Naraku's damn overwhelming stench he would have smelled her and been able to free her before this happened.

"Naraku..." His voice was a low and dangerous growl.

Rin looked up, peering around in the darkness. "Sesshoumaru-sama?" Her voice cracked and wavered with fear and hope.

"So foolish of you to put your faith in those little creatures. For such a great lord, Sesshoumaru, your entourage is pathetic. Do you just enjoy collecting things that are broken and useless?"

"Sesshoumaru-sama...?" Rin's voice was more scared, less hopeful.

He ignored Naraku, relegating the voice to the back of his mind, and focused on her. He moved before her and slashed the chains through with his claws, his arm catching her smoothly. She uttered a startled squeak and clung to his kimono.

In the background Naraku chuckled, but he was already running back toward the exit before whatever trap this was could spring. Involving Rin was a mistake on Naraku's part... It would get him killed.

He ignored the part of his heart that felt fear of his own, counterpoint to hers. He had failed to protect her again and she could have been killed... Again. Only the fact that she was unharmed kept that in a forbidden corner of his heart rather than the forefront of his being.

"Sesshoumaru-sama..." There was no fear in her voice anymore. His hand tightened barely around her, but he remained silent.

"Sesshoumaru-sama... You're so predictable..."

His head jerked down to stare at her as he stopped abruptly. He immediately turned to fling the girl away from him, but not immediately enough. The body he held faded into a flower that sailed through the air. Sudden pain sliced through his back and radiated outward, and his hand came up to feel a smooth spar of stone sticking through his chest, punched straight through his armor, connecting to the opposite wall. He was strong enough to pull himself off of it, but the damage to his body would be immense.

His head jerked up as he heard movement in the air. A young-looking man with black hair who reeked of Naraku as much as the rest of the place landed on the spar through his chest, sending tremors vibrating up it. He pressed his teeth together firmly and contained any sign of the pain.

"This is Byakuya," Naraku's voice informed him. "My newest incarnation. I believe you've met? But you probably didn't know that he was an illusionist..."

His eyes narrowed. Rin... He hadn't been able to smell her because she had never been there at all...

Byakuya smiled at him and bowed, mocking him. "Pleased to make your acquaintance without you trying to kill me."

He darted forward along the stone, leaving a smear of blood behind him, claws prepared to rip the false demon to pieces.

Byakuya lightly jumped away. "Ah. Well, not at first anyway."

He repressed a growl, watching Naraku's offspring silently. Obviously they wanted something of him... They were only mocking and teasing him. Naraku so loved to toy with people's emotions...

"Go now," Naraku instructed his offspring. "Go find that human girl for real this time..."

"As you wish." He made a flippant gesture toward Sesshoumaru and started back down the tunnel.

Sesshoumaru's eyes narrowed as they followed him, for a second, and he moved again, his foot pushing off the wall. His eyes stayed focused on Byakuya's back even as the stone ripped through flesh and muscle underneath the stump of his left arm. The sound of splintering bone accompanied the pain of his ribs being forced out of place to allow its passage. Naraku's odor was momentarily overwhelmed by his own blood; it gushed from his side, soaking his kimono and flooding the floor behind him. That wasn't important.

He felt the pain but didn't acknowledge it, moving silently across the distance to Naraku's offspring. Somehow Byakua was alerted to him and turned in time to get a shallow cut across chest instead of his upper third separate from the lower two-thirds, but that didn't deter him; he slashed as him again, dodging vines that crawled from the walls and floor at Byakuya's urging to capture him. He continued to just barely avoid him.

"Go," Naraku's voice ordered again, and Byakuya turned to flee down the tunnel without looking back, but he was behind him. He would not let this thing escape to find Rin and the others...

Diamond spears shot across the tunnel between them, and he dodged back just enough to miss them, feeling the air of their passage part his bangs. He had to focus on avoiding them for a few seconds even as he tried to get past, long enough for Byakuya to escape, to the soundtrack of Naraku's chuckle.

"Foolish, Sesshoumaru..." Another diamond spar aimed for his gaping side, and he twisted out of the way. "You didn't realize that you're inside of me... It was too late for you the moment you stepped into the 'cave'."

His breath hissed through his teeth. That perfectly explained the stench of him through this place... This was not good.

Without bothering to answer, any more than he bothered to answer most of Naraku's pointless taunting, he turned his face toward the exit and ran, calling on his innate speed. The bleeding wound in his side slowed him own, but there wasn't time to deal with that yet. Once he was outside again...

The stone of the wall at the far end of the tunnel shifted and morphed into Naraku's face. He only gave it a cold glance.

The sound behind him alerted him to more of the diamond spars coming for him, and more grew out of the walls an ceilings before him. He moved, but Naraku moved them with him, and he saw for a split second that he was surrounded. Then every one of them plunged into his body.

Naraku laughed.

His hand twitched erratically, his arm pinned across his chest by three separate spars that all managed to miss his heart. His lungs were not so lucky. He gagged, wracking his body with pain as it pulled against the diamond piercing it, and coughed a gout of blood across the thickest spar, that led toward the floor under Naraku's head. Blood trickled down the dark facets of the jewels.

He shifted one foot on the ground; his spine was thus far still intact. That couldn't have been an accident. Naraku was still keeping him alive... That bastard was still toying with him. A small growl escaped him as his hand clenched into a useless fist, and a bubble of blood came with it, staining his tongue. He resolutely swallowed it this time, unwilling to give Naraku more than he had to.

If he tried to pull himself off of them this time, he would literally rip himself apart. Granted, that would be preferable to being Naraku's prisoner, but it would leave him helpless.

Naraku's face melted back into the wall and reappeared above him. He gave it a painful glare, still searching his choices. Rip himself apart or submit...

"Nice try," Naraku told him with a smirk. "But now you're out of options. Don't feel too bad... Your power won't go to waste."

He clenched his teeth against a growl and settled on the third option.

His power surged abruptly, sealing as many of the wounds as possible, and enveloping him in a palpable aura. He felt his body changing shape, growing... The darkness seemed to lighten as his eyes grew... Naraku's reek became even more oppressive as his sense of smell sharpened further.

As he grew into his true form, the walls and ceiling pressed against his back and sides, trying to confine him in this space much too small for him. He ducked his head and shouldered the stone aside, feeling it crumble around him, sifting to his feet in piles and chunks. The diamond tore through him, but in this form, the damage was negligible. Naraku could not hurt him.

As his solidified he twisted, teeth snapping through the stone where Naraku's face had last been. It tasted like rot and poison, like Naraku himself. No sign of it actually hurting him, however. He spat the stone out and sniffed the air, then shook his head to try and get the smell from his nose. Nothing but Naraku everywhere.

He shouldered the stone aside again and shoved his way through the mountain that was Naraku, his front paw digging into it. Naku's heart was here somewhere. That was his goal, and freedom only a distant second. Hard to keep unimportant goals in his mind now. Naraku, dying... that was the important thing. Killing Naraku. Hunting Naraku.

"You're a persistent mutt, aren't you?"

He twisted instinctively toward the voice, snapping at the stone. The pile of rubble he was standing on shifted, but that was unimportant, barely noticed. More important was the fact that the stone he bit into melted and molded around his muzzle, clamping his jaws shut. He yanked it back and shook his head, trying to shake or pull the stone muzzle off.

His head hit the stone walls, and he realized they were closing in. Bracing himself, he tried to shove through them again... This time they were diamond, not stone. They wrapped around him, forcing him immobile, curled up. He was slowly being crushed by them.

It took a long moment for him to realize he should change back. Rather, that he had no choice but to change back if he were going to escape being crushed.

He lost that form, shedding the canine size, strength, and bloodlust in favor of agility and having his mind back. He shrank back almost immediately and jumped away as the walls tried to shoot him through with diamond spears.

He found quickly that there was no escape to be had. He was enclosed in a space approximately the size and shape of his canine body.

The spears chased him, but not as though they were serious. And as he stepped on another one he realized why; they were growing together, shrinking his space with each one.

It seemed Naraku was waiting for him to realize that. As he did, the walls rushed toward him, and every last hint of light abruptly disappeared.

_ – =*= – _

An interminable time of darkness passed. In retrospect, it was probably only a few minutes, but at the time it seemed much longer.

His eyes slowly detected a faint glow. As it grew, or his eyes accustomed to it, he found himself kneeling and holding Tenseiga planted on the diamond in front of him. He didn't remember grabbing it... Regardless, it was the sword that was glowing, forming a small barrier around him that kept Naraku's crushing stone away, saving his life for the time being.

He looked around slowly, then raised his hand to the wall. The glow of the sword faded minutely as he let go of it, but faithfully held back the diamond trying to crush him. Setting the tips of his claws to the wall, he focused, feeling his venom glands open and the potent poison seep out; he could spray it with more force, but it would be more concentrated in small doses.

But the strength of the acid didn't matter; it only ran down the surface of the diamond in small rivulets, pooling around the Tenseiga. It reflected the sword's glow with a sickly greenish cast, giving him a little more light in his prison. All it revealed was darkness and more darkness beyond the walls, however.

His claws slid along the surface of the diamond as he considered. He didn't see any marks left on it... That further annoyed him. He should have been able to do something to it. He was not just helpless, after all...

He pulled his hand back, and after a mere second of careful consideration he shoved it forward once again, his claws glinting in the light, razor-sharp edges that could crush stone and easily slice bone arrowing toward the wall.

Then it hit, and instead of slicing they simply collided. The rebound jarred him off balance and he fell against the opposite wall with a hiss of pain, holding his arm instinctively close to his chest. The middle claw had been completely ripped off, and was bleeding freely... The first and third were broken hideously. All of his fingers were mangled, and he might have broken his arm. That would take some time to heal...

"I find that sword inconvenient."

He jerked his head up, eyes narrowed. Naraku's disembodied face swam out of the darkness behind the thick diamond prison, leering at him. The smug smirk on his face gave him no feeling so much as the desire to reach through and rip his face completely off... A low growl escaped his throat.

In time with the sound, the glow of the Tenseiga brightened a little, throwing shards of light off the diamond toward Naraku.

He only chuckled. "It's the only thing standing between you and being the newest part of my body... I'm sure you're rather attached to it right now. But make no mistake, I will have you. Your sword can't protect you forever. Then, I'll have your power... Even if it turns out I don't need you, I'm sure you'd make an interesting extension... You could work side by side with Byakua."

His broken hand clenched into an agonized but enraged fist. "You _would not dare_..." A mere offspring, on the level with the beast from which he'd had Tokijin made? Even Naraku wouldn't dare insult him like that...

Naraku chuckled, stoking his rage further. "We'll see. I'm sure I could use that pride for something..."

"This pride will see you dead," he spat.

"One of us... But not me, I think." Naraku's face started to fade back into the stone, but his voice echoed after him. "I have more patience than you have time. Welcome to the darkness, Sesshoumaru."

He ground his teeth; one of the points chipped off and flicked across his tongue, but he ignored it. He shifted into a better sitting position with his legs crossed and rested his hand on top of the Tenseiga, staring into the dark stone on the other side of the diamond while he waited for it to heal.

One of them... One of them indeed. Naraku would die.

Tenseiga glimmered calmly.

_ – =*= – _

He discovered it was impossible to judge time while he waited in the darkness. The only way he had of estimating its passage was the progress of his arm; after it healed, it was all completely subjective. His legs grew slowly tired from maintaining their position, but there was no room to stretch them, and so he ignored them instead.

He slowly brushed his fingers through the dribbles of poison pooled at the base of Tenseiga, feeling the diamond for cracks or damage. There were none. It was as smooth and flawless as ever and showed no sign of giving way...

He bit back a sound of annoyance and set his claws against it, trying to dig them into it. Even just a tiny hole would be purchase, and the means of his escape.

Instead of throwing all of his strength against it again and injuring himself, again, he gradually brought it to bear, focusing his attention on the diamond. One small crack... He only needed one small crack...

He stopped when the first of his claws snapped cleanly off. Raw skin in the nail bed was stung by the poison and he lifted his hand, idly shaking it off. His eyes lifted to the wall in front of him. He had to admit that was a pointless course of action; his claws would not dig through diamond.

Reaching up, he shifted his fur and let out his power again, to retake his true form, the form with the strength to free him. It swirled around silently him and his body began to change, filling the space rapidly with fur and solid muscle.

It had no more than started however before he let out a high pitched whine of pain and collapsed to the side on his fur, abruptly back in his lesser form, his arm lying mangled across his chest and his armor shattering to dust around him in a pile and Tenseiga forced against the farther wall. The space was too small. He had known that, but normally he could make the space bigger as he grew. ...Now, his brute strength couldn't force his way out. If he transformed fully he would be completely crushed.

His claws couldn't free him. His strength couldn't free him.

Golden eyes rose toward the stone. Somewhere in the darkness, he heard Naraku laughing.

_ – =*= – _

Either time was taking much longer to pass, or he was healing more slowly.

His dislocated and mangled arm across his chest, he considered the darkness above him, lying against his fur propped on the wall. He thought it was the latter. As he realized his situation, his body had begun to shut down, instinctively conserving his power and energy. He was starting to feel hungry, which he wouldn't if he hadn't expended as much power as he already had in his attempts to get Naraku, but he ignored that; he didn't have much choice, unless he wanted to eat his own fingers. It was relegated to the back of his mind with the pain of his arm and the weary aching in his legs and back and the excruciatingly slow healing as his remaining power was hoarded. He made no attempt at accessing it, either. He had no idea how long it would have to sustain him... or what good it would do if it did.

The light of the Tenseiga propped against the other wall flickered, and he felt the diamond shift infinitesimally closer. His eyes flicked silently toward the sword. Was its shield failing? Already? It wouldn't matter how long his power could sustain him then...

After watching it glow steadily for a few moments, he determined that it had likely been a momentary flicker. It seemed fine now, and the diamond wasn't moving again. It was holding again, at least for now.

But now that was something else on his mind. How long would Tenseiga hold out? It had never had to sustain its shield so long before... he had never thought about its limit. He supposed it must have one, even if it wasn't something he wanted to consider. If he didn't know its limit, however, there was no way Naraku could.

Fucking Naraku.

Thus far, Naraku hadn't returned to taunt him any more. Perhaps he really was being patient, waiting for him to lose his shield so he could be absorbed. The idea revolted him... Naraku, of course, knew that, and was letting the idea fester in his mind, so that he could bother him without having to do a thing.

It worked. He would _never_ allow himself to become a part of Naraku – never. It was not an option.

He shifted so that his left shoulder was touching Tenseiga. There were a lot of things that weren't options right now... Most things, in fact. There was only one choice, and that was to wait. He was not good at waiting, and never had been; inactivity rubbed him the wrong way when there was an enemy or a purpose. However, for the moment, despite the enemy and the purpose, he had no other option. Eventually, Naraku would make a mistake... and he would wait until he did, though it disagreed with him, because he had to.

Tenseiga's glow seemed to strengthen, fortified by something unseen. If the effect wasn't his eyes playing tricks on him, he welcomed it, though he acknowledged the possibility that it was an illusion brought on by the dimness and the reflections in the diamond. Perhaps Tenseiga had found its inner strength and was ready to protect him for a while longer.

Or perhaps he was ascribing noble motivations to a sword that was basically nothing... Just a scrap cast off of Inuyasha's.

His mind needed to be occupied, and imagining things about his sword would do that for the moment, at least. He didn't try very hard to deter the thoughts about it. It was a piece of Tetsusaiga, but it still existed after it had been broken and returned the Meidou to the original... That meant something. That it was a real sword and not just a discarded piece, perhaps. And if that were so, there was no reason that it, like Tetsusaiga, couldn't have a will of its own and protect the one it chose.

Nobility might stretch that a bit far, however. It might have a will, but he sincerely doubted it had intelligence, or feelings. If it did, it would have abandoned him long since for the insults he'd heaped on it. No, rather like a pet, it simply protected its master.

Either way, however. At least it was shielding him from Naraku.

Tenseiga continued to glow placidly, unaware of his thoughts. He didn't go out of his way to enlighten it, either, but shifted the remains of his missing arm on top of the hilt. Tenseiga's power might outlast Naraku's patience... with that, he could win this. When Naraku grew impatient and came to kill him, Naraku would die instead...

Tenseiga's glow seemed to agree with his plan. Although that support was of course in his imagination, it was a slightly reassuring imagining, not that he needed reassured or supported. It seemed he was imagining Tenseiga playing Jaken's role. He had grown accustomed to the kappa's inane babbling and sycophantic worship... He hadn't heard it since leaving them behind and going after Naraku. It would have filled the silence nicely, if nothing else.

His mind would have to do that for now, however, until he got out of here to hear Jaken and the others again, and then shortly thereafter wish for the silence back.

...Tenseiga was not good conversation.

His eyes slid away from the sword, his mind and body growing restless at the lack of stimulation. As though almost saying he missed Jaken weren't enough to prove it, he wanted to get up and walk, anywhere, which was obviously not an option. He closed his eyes, willing his mind to turn from the boredom to at least sleep. It would dull the pain and help recover his energy and power, which it would be smarter to do earlier rather than later.

Pushing his breath out slowly, he ignored the darkness outside his eyelids and passed into the darkness within.

_ – =*= – _

Movement woke him with a start, the subtle shifting of the wall behind him. He jerked his head up, and it collided with the ceiling in the darkness.

He realized simultaneously that Tenseiga's light had nearly gone out and the space was closing in around him. With a painful twist he grabbed the hilt of the sword and poured power into it. The sword flashed blindingly for a moment and the walls stopped moving in, but he could only look at them blankly. They were so close now. Tenseiga fell back to a dim glow, leaving him mostly in darkness, and the walls were closer together than the length of his one arm. When he crossed his legs, he was touching them on all sides.

It didn't come as much of a surprise that he couldn't sleep, in retrospect. Tenseiga's light had been flickering... now it was feeble even with his conscious addition of power. Sleeping and paying it no attention would spell his doom that much faster. Likely, he wouldn't wake again.

Tiredness, then, was pushed to the back of his mind with the hunger, aches, and pain. He sat holding Tenseiga calmly in front of him with the blade planted on the diamond floor, contemplating the dark walls. The dim light no longer cast back reflections and refused to pierce the diamond much more than the width of his hand, and it seemed now that he was encased in a murky void like the Meidou, where light simply fell away into depthless darkness and ceased to be.

Only endless dark and oppressive silence surrounded him.

The darkness ignored him as he watched it. It didn't have to pay him any mind... Compared to the bottomless blackness of Naraku, the light of his small sword was nothing. It probably did have the patience to wait him out... It didn't have to even try to take him. Eventually his defenses would come down...

Tenseiga flickered again, and he looked at it, willing it to keep the shield up. For a moment more it wavered, then found its light again and the light returned to its latest normal strength, weak as that was.

It would hold for now. How much longer he didn't know...

_ – =*= – _

"Are you afraid of the dark, Sesshoumaru?"

He lifted his head, eyes skating around him as he heard the quiet whisper in the darkness. Naraku's face didn't show itself in the stone walls outside his prison... not that Tenseiga's dim light could show him, at any rate. Of course his nose could find nothing but Naraku around him, the stench he had grown numb to... he didn't detect any change in his surroundings.

"Don't you like to be alone?" The whisper came again, and his ears twitched, searching for the source of it. He didn't change his position or actively appear to look for him, but his ears strained.

Fruitlessly. The silence returned, settling over his prison again like Naraku's miasma, seeping into everything. He couldn't even hear his own breathing or heartbeat; both had slowed, of course, just like his healing, but it was still oppressive. It was a lot like he was losing his senses one by one... Smell was his primary sense, but there was nothing to smell but Naraku and himself, and those were both now smells he was so accustomed to that they almost disappeared. Hearing was secondary, but the empty darkness gave him nothing to hear. His sight was the third most important to him, but the darkness was encroaching...

He shifted and took a firmer hold on his sword. He could still feel, at least; pain shot up his arm, but not close to what it had been. It was almost healed, finally. In a way, the pain was reassuring... it was something that was real in the slow sensory deprivation of this prison, proving that he had at least one sense that wasn't failing or being stolen.

"Are you afraid of the dark...?"

He started and sat up straighter, so that his head brushed the ceiling again, more alarmed this time because he knew where the voice was coming from. His ears weren't hearing it at all. Somehow the voice was in his mind...

"Are you enjoying it, Sesshoumaru? Are you relishing it? It's the last thing you'll see."

"Naraku!" He was surprised to hear his voice rough. How long had it been since it was used? "Show yourself."

Only a chuckle in his mind answered him. Tenseiga glowed slightly brighter for a second as he clenched the sword in annoyance.

"You're a coward, Naraku, hiding in the darkness..."

The chuckle taunted him again. "You know they must have gotten your humans by now... Your little girl is dead."

A small growl burst unheeded from his throat. He was _not _threatening Rin and Kohaku, and Jaken...

No, no, he didn't have them... If he did, he would have brought them here and made him see what he did to them, not simply sent a taunting voice into his head. As much as Naraku loved to turn people's emotions against them, he would never have passed up such a perfect opportunity to torture him with that... nor the chance of breaking him. His taunting was just yet another attempt to get inside his mind and get to him. He wouldn't allow it to succeed.

"The darkness will have you, as it has them."

This voice could not be in his mind. Byakuya... It had to be the illusionist, making him think he was hearing this. Even more of Naraku's tricks, then.

"You lie," he said coldly, gripping the sword just a little tighter. He did not have them...

Naraku's voice chuckled again. "Why would I lie when I know you would know I was lying...? That would be a waste of time. There's more than one way to be taken by the darkness..."

With a growl, he shifted, ignoring the daggers of pain up his numb legs as he moved to his knees, gripping the sword as though it were actually a weapon. "Naraku...!"

The bastard laughed again. Sesshoumaru shook his head a touch, trying to dislodge the voice. It was stuck there like a flea he couldn't get to, gorging itself and driving him insane from the petty annoyance.

"You'll find out all about that. You'll have forever to find out all about that.."

"I will never submit to you, Naraku!"

There wasn't even laughter in answer. The silence returned as thick as the darkness, leaving him unsure if the voice had truly been Naraku or his illusionist.

_ – =*= – _

As Tenseiga's light began to fail visibly, Sesshoumaru realized he might die here.

He held the sword pressed down on the diamond floor in front of him, watching it flicker and feeling the wall slowly shift at his back. There was barely enough light to see the walls around him, though he could have leaned forward and licked any one of them.

He would sooner kill himself than become a part of Naraku...

That was not a decision he could come to lightly; Naraku was not worth his life. It was not that he was afraid of death or so in love with his life, but that he had so little esteem for Naraku... for everyone and everything. Though he was strong enough that it had never been a question before, there was nothing he could think of that was worth his life. Yet, to keep Naraku from winning this, he would pay that.

Nor was it a decision it did him any good to come to. Naraku could absorb a dead body as easily as a living, or perhaps more so, and there was no way to destroy himself completely enough that he could not. If Tenseiga still had the power of the Meidou... But no. It didn't, and if it did, he wouldn't be in this situation. That was just a useless thought.

If he took his life, he would be leaving his body here, trapped within Naraku for him to use as he saw fit. At that point, the only thing he would be doing was saving himself from whatever torment Naraku had planned in the interim, and the shame of losing to him...

And he was not that sort of coward.

Even if he had lost, he would continue to defy him until Naraku finally killed him, even unto his last breath... There lay the true escape from shame. Naraku could torment him as he wished, he would not beat him.

As he thought that firm, if depressing, vow, Tenseiga's light flickered and died completely. The darkness was absolute; for a second, afterimages swam in front of his eyes, but they slowly disappeared, leaving him in total blackness. Turning his head to the side, he couldn't even see his fur.

He braced himself and pulled the sword close, sitting on his knees and making himself as small as possible already, attempting to make himself ready to resist being absorbed into Naraku. He was prepared to die, finally, but that didn't mean he would welcome it or give in to it easily.

The cold diamond wrapped around his body, but chose not to crush him yet. Instead he was left exactly enough room to breathe, but couldn't so much as turn his head or twitch a finger; his body was encased in solid mineral, harder than stone, trapped in the position he had been sitting in with Tenseiga pressed to his chest, his fur flattened against him, legs folded and head bowed stiffly.

Rather than taking him now that he was at his mercy, Naraku kept him that way, trapped in the darkness, to taunt him.

_ – =*= – _

"Sesshoumaru-sama!"

His eyes shot open. It took two blinks for him to make sure they were, because there was no difference in the darkness.

That voice – Rin's voice. Here. Where?

"Sesshoumaru-sama!"

Jaken's voice this time. They were calling to him... They were looking for him? They should not be here, Naraku would take them, and they would die slow, terrible deaths... This was not safe.

A whisper of an echo of a scent drifted to him, Rin and Jaken and Kohaku, and he jerked his head up – tried, rather. It slammed into the diamond above him so hard that he briefly saw brightly colored lights flood across his vision, and hissed in pain. The throbbing in his head brought back his senses, though.

They were not here. Even if they were here, he would not be able to hear them through the stone... let alone smell them. This was another illusion of Naraku's...

Or he was imagining it.

His head drooped onto the diamond again and he closed his eyes. It was easier to deal with the darkness when he didn't have to actually see it, and he could pretend it was only the darkness inside his eyelids. Perhaps it was his own mind betraying him... It needed something to experience. As it was, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, for it. He could not see any better with his eyes open than closed. His sense of smell had been dulled so far by Naraku's stench he might as well have cut his nose off. He could have gone deaf and never realized it for all the change in the silence. His body was going numb from the the cold diamond and there was nothing to even taste... He was being deprived steadily of all of his senses, and he knew even consciously that it was getting to him. He was beginning to feel like an isolated mind floating in a void... Sometimes, he didn't know if he was awake or not. His mind drifted. It was conceivable his mind was slowly turning in on itself and summoning random thoughts and memories to try not to simply fail.

If Naraku's plan was to consume him in sheer emptiness until he didn't have the mind left to resist him anymore... he might just succeed.

His eyes slid open, but he didn't notice. Staring at the darkness, he tried to remember what light looked like, but that was one thing his mind couldn't summon.

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[[ To protect my account from suspension, to read the lemon which is here, you can read this story on , mediaminer, or , if you're of legal age and care to read yaoi smut. Thank you. ]]

_ – =*= – _

Light.

Even through his eyelids it dazzled him, but he wanted to see it. Light he had forgotten, been made to forget.

He opened his eyes slowly, wincing from it. The light shone through the diamond, reflecting through the walls of the gem prison, increasing in intensity as it went and throwing itself into his dark-abused eyes. He squinted through it, however, because he needed to see something, anything, and he saw that the stone above his head was gone, and it was being torn away at his sides, letting in that breathtaking light.

A flash of red. He couldn't see well enough to make out what it was, and his head was still locked in place, but the light followed that red streak as it crossed his vision.

Something reached his ears. It was muddled and confused, distorted crashes, but it was a sound. Noise. There was something to hear, finally... His ears twitched, drinking it all hungrily. He had never been so relieved to simply _hear_...

And then another sense returned. Pain. The diamond squeezed him abruptly, trying to crush him before he could be released, but it only lasted a split second. The sword in his hand began to glow, soaking up the light from outside his prison, the light of freedom that was so close, and pushed back the walls, not even the span of a hand, but enough. Enough that he would move his head and his arm, enough that he could begin to feel again.

Enough that he could pull to the side and avoid the blade that sliced through the wall of the prison that held him like the diamond was so much grass.

"-oumaru!"

He raised his head slowly as shattered diamonds fell around him, raining on the floor with a gentle tinkling sound that he savored. Golden eyes and perked ears looked at him in open concern, over the top of Tenseiga's magnificent dragon scaled blade.

"Sesshoumaru, you're alive!"

It wasn't even in him at the moment to resent Inuyasha's interference, or hate him for saving him. "Yes," he answered simply. His throat was sore and his tongue felt foreign, but the word sounded right. Good.

"Well, come on out..." his brother invited, and offered him a hand. He gave it a single glance and pushed himself to his feet without his help, surreptitiously using Tenseiga to support himself until he regained his balance and the feeling in his legs. Sweet air moved his hair, and carried a thousand thousand different scents to his nose. He closed his eyes for a moment and simply breathed. Naraku, vanquished for the moment. Inuyasha, victorious. His friends. Shikon jewel pieces. Grass, trees, animals and water and soil, the oily smell of the girl's strange contraption, the fires and filth of a human village a day's walk away. Rin, Jaken, Kohaku, Ah-Un, all together, safe, and sound. Death, blood, fighting... Life. His nose painted a picture of the land and went far to making him feel miraculously whole again.

"Sesshoumaru?"

He slowly opened his eyes to the light again and looked down at Inuyasha. "Yes?" He felt light-headed, he noticed absently. He needed to eat and rest for several days, but not until he was out of sight of Inuyasha and his group.

"Are you okay?"

He simply looked at him. If his legs were more steady, he would have ignored the question and left.

"We found Rin, Jaken... they said you were missing for two weeks." He stood looking at him like he expected and answer, but he didn't get one. "...Did Naraku have you all that time?"

His eyes slid slowly from Inuyasha to the diamond prison they still stood on, standing on a thin support of the same, above the ground. All that was left of Naraku here. "Yes."

"What was he doing...?"

Silence fell as he considered that. Did he even know? His body was whole, and seemed untouched... his sword was here in his hand. Was that... torment, what Naraku did... all in his mind, as well?

Had he done that to himself in his desperation to experience something, anything? In a final effort to not give in to the darkness, his mind had envisioned the most painful experience it could imagine, and made him live through it? Forever, until it simply couldn't do any more?

Or was it an illusion granted by Byakuya to try to drive him over the edge? A cruel and careful plan on Naraku's part to destroy him?

...Or had it been real?

"Sesshoumaru?"

"He was attempting to absorb me into himself. He failed."

Sesshoumaru raised his eyes again, past his brother's concerned face, and judged that if his legs couldn't hold him now, there was no choice but to let Inuyasha see it. He jumped down and landed gracefully, covering the fact that they nearly gave out, and walked toward his own group, not far away. He would collect them, move on, and finally rest...

"Sesshoumaru-sama!" The chorus from all three of them rang nicely in his ears. It was nice to hear anything. They ran toward him but he kept walking, because when he next stopped he would be stopped for good for some time, and simply expected them to follow. His eyes lingered on them, though. Jaken was nearly leaping around for joy, his bugged eyes positively alight. Kohaku remained aloof but pleased, and relieved that the burden of protection was off is shoulders. And Rin looked so innocent and happy, and her smile was as bright as ever.

They ran after him as he passed. "Sesshoumaru-sama, I was really worried," Rin said as she trotted at his side. "But I knew you'd come back. Jaken-sama was sure you had died."

"I was not, you stupid girl! I would never have thought the great Sesshoumaru-dono could be slain by such a measly beast!"

"Why do you lie so, Jaken-sama?"

Their babbling faded into the background as the wind rustled through the trees, carrying the old scent of Naraku toward him from the battleground and prison he had just left. Tenseiga pulsed at his side gently. A voice whispered on the wind.

"Are you afraid of the dark, Sesshoumaru?" the voice asked him quietly.

He touched Tenseiga lightly and didn't answer.

_~end~_


End file.
